Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is a Central Asian country, with Ashgabat serving as its capital. Turkmenistan was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1881, and it featured prominently in the anti-Bolshevik movement in Central Asia during the Russian Civil War. In 1925, Turkmenistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union as the Turkmen SSR, and it became independent upon the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Turkmenistan, like the rest of the newly-independent Central Asian countries, became an authoritarian single-party state, with Saparmurat Niyazov serving as the country's first president. The country was virtually closed to independent scrutiny, media and religious freedoms were subjected to draconian restrictions, and human rights defenders and other activists faced the constant threat of government reprisal. In 2016, Turkmenistan had a population of 5,662,544 people.